This is from one of my students:

CFP = Certified Financial Planner

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Talking to CFP

The Attitude

He is the authority.  I don’t have the time to learn all the things he’s been trained to  know.  I have to talk to him as the person of authority.

The phone call

“Hi, I live in Oneonta and I need to find a CFP to refer my clients to.  I have an appointment in Albany on Wednesday and I know it is short notice, but I wonder if you could see me for a cup of coffee between the hours of 1 and 3?”

When pressed for more information too soon:

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to get into it all over the phone right now.  I’m not selling anything, I want to sit with you for 20 minutes to learn about how your office works.  I talk to people all the time who are in need of financial planning and I want to send them to the right financial planner.”

If the planner is associated with Ed Slot, say: “I found your name on the Ed Slot website and I want to talk to you about STRETCH IRAs”.

The visit

The CFP bible is the Kaplan book “Retiring Right”.  I need to read it, and study it.  I also need to bring it with me to his office.  The next book to bring with me is “Get more referrals now by Bill Cates”.  Referrals are the CFP’s lifeblood.  He doesn’t have time or desire to do direct marketing.

When I visit, I am going to proceed in two phases.  The first phase is to show that I understand their life.  I say: “I am not a CFP, I don’t hold an insurance license series 663.  I don’t hold a series 7 to sell individual stocks.  I’m not really qualified to advise people on investments but my partner is.  He advises people internationally and has been doing it since 1986.  He’s the one who told me about how fee based planners work and why I should find a good one.  My partner told me to look for a financial planner who will charge fee rather than take commissions.  Is that you?  I need to find someone who can look at a person’s entire picture and not just push product on him.  I understand that people will feel safer paying an hourly rate for consultation and analysis, is that what you do?

Once the CFP feels that I understand what he does and why he does it, I can get into more about why I’m there.

“I deal with people every day who are in need of financial planning.  I want to get acclimatized to your fact finder.  My job is to get you clients but in a situation of true networking which goes two ways.  I’ll tell you more about my business in a minute, but first, I need to get a few things on the table and learn about what type of clients you want, the type you don’t want, and I want to know that you’re not just going to push insurance on him the moment he walks in the door.

As I said, I’ve been trained by my boss who has been involved with financial planning since 1986.  He said I need to work with people who can help my business and someone I can trust to send my clients to.
 

He taught me how you work – you’ve basically got your offense and defense:

Defense	Offense
Life Insurance (for when people die too early)	Wealth accumulation
Income protection (for when people get injured)
Annuities
Long term care (for when people live too long)

 

Now the stuff on the left is all defense and it’s not fun and sexy.  The problem is that the defensive stuff is all price driven.  People will go on the internet and shop for the lowest price.  You understand the differences in the various products and you can tell people the best one for their needs, but they know they can go just about anywhere to buy that stuff.

Now, my business is on the offense side.  I’m on the wealth accumulation side.  My boss said that after 1987-89 you guys had a great ride.  He said that the market just kept steadily returning 15% for years and he was like everyone’s hero.  People loved him and it made it really easy to sell the insurance and disability policies because people were already on your side.

But, now it’s 2005 and from 2000 to 2002 the market lost a third.  We’ve had the world trade center, and iraq and Katrina and it’s just not looking to bright.  We’ve got the graying of America and forced retirement distributions on the horizon and it’s just not that easy to get the wealth accumulation.

I get people 10-15% on their money guaranteed with security.  I do that by buying modest homes in decent areas and giving people a mortgage for security.  If I mess up, they can take the house.  People laugh at this image, but it’s an important one:  Imagine going into Fidelity investments and saying to them “You know, I’m tired of this up and down business, I want a guaranteed steady 10 percent return on my money.  And, I want you to sign a piece of paper that says I can come get my money back if you don’t deliver.”

I brought with me a WSJ article that describes SDIRA.  On my business card, I have a website that is very well designed and teaches retirees in Florida about self-directed IRA.  People love this, they love having control of their money and their investments.

What I do is I go and talk to the Rotary clubs and the Lions club and the Chamber of Commerce and I convince people to take a portion of their mutual funds and sell them, and roll them over into this special IRA with no penalty and then they can put it into my projects to get 10-15% guaranteed.

Today, I just want to get your fact finder and understand it.  When I find people who are a match for you, I’m going to send them to you and I’d like you to refer people to me.  You know that we need to have all their information up front, so you’ll probably need to ask them if it’s okay to forward me a summary of their financial information. 

I’m not always talking to millionaires so if you’re not interested in talking to the John Q. Public’s of the world, that’s fine, I won’t send them to you.

I realize Albany is 60 minutes away from Oneonta, but sometimes I’m in Cobleskill and sometimes, I’m over toward Binghamton so I’ll base it that way.  I don’t know if you make house calls or if you would like to attend when I give presentations so you can follow up with a needs assessment and risk analysis?